Post navigation

Two Poems by Kevin Ridgeway

Television Glow

Your tears are on tap at any film
from the hydrogenated trite rolling
out in designer packages from
the Hollywood meat factories
to black and white claptrap shakily
rolling from a student’s palm
on the streets of Brooklyn
but tonight I was sure the flurry of
old news footage and angry marching
and spine tingling song after glorious
greatest hit of the greatest hits
those twang rebel yell soul ravagers
climaxing with a lovely and
dignified man blowing
his brains out all over his desk
would make you sob all over me
leaving me drenched as if I’d been
for a dip in the pool but instead you
brooded stoically and left me dry
as a bone I thought I had my finger
on the pulse of what moves you
while I fidget and fumble for my
gadgets with my ass falling off
like a savage cynical mind’s
comeuppance never to tinker
with big boy toys when the folks
are out on the town again.

At the Mercy of Invisible Ink

Morphing from my cosmic jelly
into a breathing late night adult
cartoon with an inferiority
complex to the morning cartoons
wolf-whistling at tight dresses
and schmoozing with my animator
to make my life complete

Waking up in the late AM the
next day, live action and trapped
at the mercy of invisible ink,
the Gods filling out my lines as we
speak.